Читать книгу Annie Besant: An Autobiography - Annie Besant - Страница 4

The Easter of 1866 was a memorable date in my life. I was introduced to the clergyman I married, and I met and conquered my first religious doubt. A little mission church had been opened the preceding Christmas in a very poor district of Clapham. My grandfather's house was near at hand, in Albert Square, and a favourite aunt and myself devoted ourselves a good deal to this little church, as enthusiastic girls and women will. At Easter we decorated it with spring flowers, with dewy primroses and fragrant violets, and with the yellow bells of the wild daffodil, to the huge delight of the poor who crowded in, and of the little London children who had, many of them, never seen a flower. Here I met the Rev. Frank Besant, a young Cambridge man, who had just taken orders, and was serving the little mission church as deacon; strange that at the same time I should meet the man I was to marry, and the doubts which were to break the marriage tie. For in the Holy Week preceding that Easter Eve, I had been—as English and Roman Catholics are wont to do—trying to throw the mind back to the time when the commemorated events occurred, and to follow, step by step, the last days of the Son of Man, living, as it were, through those last hours, so that I might be ready to kneel before the cross on Good Friday, to stand beside the sepulchre on Easter Day. In order to facilitate the realisation of those last sacred days of God incarnate on earth, working out man's salvation, I resolved to write a brief history of that week, compiled from the Four Gospels, meaning them to try and realise each day the occurrences that had happened on the corresponding date in A.D. 33, and so to follow those "blessed feet" step by step, till they were

" … nailed for our advantage to the bitter cross."

With the fearlessness which springs from ignorance I sat down to my task. My method was as follows:—

MATTHEW.	MARK.	LUKE.	JOHN.
PALM SUNDAY.	PALM SUNDAY.	PALM SUNDAY.	PALM SUNDAY.
Rode into Jerusalem. Purified the Temple. Returned to Bethany.	Rode into Jerusalem. Returned to Bethany.	Rode into Jerusalem. Purified the Temple. Note: "Taught daily in the temple."	Rode into Jerusalem. Spoke in the Temple.
MONDAY.	MONDAY.	MONDAY.	MONDAY.
Cursed the fig-tree. Taught in the Temple, and spake many parables. No breaks shown, but the fig-tree (xxi.19) did not wither till Tuesday (see Mark).	Cursed the fig-tree. Purified the Temple. Went out of city.	Like Matthew.	——
TUESDAY.	TUESDAY.	TUESDAY.	TUESDAY.
All chaps, xxi. 20, xxii-xxv., spoken on Tuesday, for xxvi. 2 gives Passover as "after two days."	Saw fig-tree withered up. Then discourses.	Discourses. No date shown.	——
WEDNESDAY.	WEDNESDAY.	WEDNESDAY.	WEDNESDAY.
Blank. (Possibly remained in Bethany, the alabaster box of ointment.)
THURSDAY.	THURSDAY.	THURSDAY.	THURSDAY.
Preparation of Passover. Eating of Passover, and institution of the Holy Eucharist. Gethsemane. Betrayal by Judas. Led captive to Caiaphas. Denied by St. Peter.	Same as Matt.	Same as Matt.	Discourses with disciples, but before the Passover. Washes the disciples' feet. Nothing said of Holy Eucharist, nor of agony in Gethsemane. Malchus' ear. Led captives to Annas first. Then to Caiaphas. Denied by St. Peter.
FRIDAY.	FRIDAY.	FRIDAY.	FRIDAY.
Led to Pilate. Judas hangs himself. Tried. Condemned to death. Scourged and mocked. Led to crucifixion. Darkness from 12 to 3. Died at 3.	As Matthew, but hour of crucifixion given, 9 a.m.	Led to Pilate. Sent to Herod. Sent back to Pilate. Rest as in Matthew; but one malefactor repents.	Taken to Pilate. Jews would not enter, that they might eat the Passover. Scourged by Pilate before condemnation, and mocked. Shown by Pilate to Jews at 12.

I became uneasy as I proceeded with my task, for discrepancies leaped at me from my four columns; the uneasiness grew as the contradictions increased, until I saw with a shock of horror that my "harmony" was a discord, and a doubt of the veracity of the story sprang up like a serpent hissing in my face. It was struck down in a moment, for to me to doubt was sin, and to have doubted on the very eve of the Passion was an added crime. Quickly I assured myself that these apparent contradictions were necessary as tests of faith, and I forced myself to repeat Tertullian's famous "Credo quia impossible," till, from a wooden recital, it became a triumphant affirmation. I reminded myself that St. Peter had said of the Pauline Epistles that in them were "some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest … unto their own destruction." I shudderingly recognised that I must be very unlearned and unstable to find discord among the Holy Evangelists, and imposed on myself an extra fast as penance for my ignorance and lack of firmness in the faith. For my mental position was one to which doubt was one of the worst of sins. I knew that there were people like Colenso, who questioned the infallibility of the Bible, but I remembered how the Apostle John had fled from the Baths when Cerinthus entered them, lest the roof should fall on the heretic, and crush any one in his neighbourhood, and I looked on all heretics with holy horror. Pusey had indoctrinated me with his stern hatred of all heresy, and I was content to rest with him on that faith, "which must be old because it is eternal, and must be unchangeable because it is true." I would not even read the works of my mothers favourite Stanley, because he was "unsound," and because Pusey had condemned his "variegated use of words which destroys all definiteness of meaning"—a clever and pointed description, be it said in passing, of the Dean's exquisite phrases, capable of so many readings. It can then be imagined with what a stab of pain this first doubt struck me, and with what haste I smothered it up, buried it, and smoothed the turf over its grave. But it had been there, and it left its mark.